Architecture

This will be a living document, so you can always check back in if you see a new term that I haven’t explained before to see if I define it here. Alternately, please use the comments section below to ask me to define terms here that you would find useful.

This post covers the next unique element in the browser that has been adapted for the Google Privacy Sandbox: worklets. Worklets were introduced in Chrome 61 (2017) specifically for performance-critical tasks related to audio processing, video manipulation, and animation. They allow for multi-threaded execution off the main Javascript thread, were designed for tight integration with browser APIs, and have restricted capabilities to ensure security and minimize attack vectors.

The design of the sandbox is intended to meet these requirements while still allowing for the delivery of effective advertising, whether designed for the top-, middle-, or bottom-of-funnel that can positively lift sales and have a positive return on ad spend.

The previous post ended with a high-level diagram of the revised Chrome browser that is adapted for the Google Privacy Sandbox (Figure 1). In this article, we will explore in more detail the core products and services that form the browser side of the Privacy Sandbox. In the subsequent article, we will highlight each element in Figure 1 and explain how it supports/ties into the products and services that need to be delivered (Figure 2).

We are not going to get into flows or “connective tissue” for how the various pieces talk to each other (e.g. OHTTP) for now. We are going to build up the main static elements first, bit-by-painful-bit, exploring all the underlying concepts and technologies that reside within and drive the functionality of these “big pieces”. Then we will show how all the pieces fit together.